Duane Elgin is no stranger to the conscious evolution movement. His 1981 classic, Voluntary Simplicity, inspired a generation of people to start to approach their lives and choices with the entire planet in mind. And since that time, he has been a tireless advocate for helping humanity awaken to a larger perspective on who we are and why we are here. In his new book, The Living Universe (2009), Elgin broadens the scope of his vision from a planetary scale to include the entire universe, proposing a new cosmology that is at once spiritually based but also informed by our scientific understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of the cosmos.

In this Unbound interview, EnlightenNext’s Megan Cater and Joel Pitney speak with Elgin about his book and the new cosmology that it articulates. Elgin, whose biography includes working with Stanford University’s famous CIA-sponsored “psychic spying” program, writing multiple popular books, and founding several nonprofits dedicated to media activism, is a veteran figure in the small but growing community of thinkers interested in both exploring consciousness and changing culture. Over the course of the conversation, Elgin explains why he thinks that starting to see the universe as a living entity rather than as a mechanical conglomeration of lifeless particles can have a significant impact on culture, and even on our personal moral choices. Citing the current global economic, social, and environmental trends, he suggests that such a shift in perspective is not only possible but necessary for humanity to move forward.

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